The Senate is set to unveil competing plans — one Republican and one Democratic — to stop and perhaps give Obama more flexibility to reprogram the spending cuts in the sequester. But those measures, which will get a vote on Thursday, both are expected to need a 60-vote threshold in the Senate, and both are expected to fail.

The White House said Wednesday that it doesn’t expect anything to come of the Senate votes, and press secretary Jay Carney sought to blame Republicans for the massive cuts that will ensue.

“Obviously the Senate will vote on proposals — or at least one proposal that would eliminate, or rather postpone, the deadline for the sequester — a balanced proposal that the president supports, a balanced proposal that a majority of the Senate will support, unfortunately a proposal that, while earning a majority vote is likely to be blocked by Republican leaders who will thereby be making a choice that we should let the sequester go into effect rather than ask that some special interest tax breaks be eliminated,” Carney said.

“Hopefully that won’t come to pass but certainly, based on what we’ve seen from Republicans thus far, that is a more likely outcome.”

The president spoke briefly with the top four Hill leaders during a statue dedication ceremony for Rosa Parks at the Capitol Wednesday, but Carney didn’t indicate progress. He reiterated the White House’s insistence that revenues be part of any deal and excoriated Republicans for failing to even consider then.

“We remain hopeful that at some point, hopefully soon, Republicans will understand the need to compromise here, and that compromise has balance at its essence,” Carney said. “The president looks forward to a conversation when he has this meeting that is constructive and that includes suggestions by leaders about how we can move forward toward the kind of balanced deficit reduction that this is all about,” he said.

“If the President is serious about stopping the sequester, why did he schedule a meeting on Tuesday for Friday when the sequester hits at midnight on Thursday?” a Capitol Hill Republican sniped. “Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a — belated – farce. They ought to at least pretend to try.”